The Pembina Hills school division and the County of Barrhead will split the cost of a $33,376 renovation to the front entrance of their shared office building to make it barrier-free.
Pembina Hills trustees passed a motion approving their half of the project — a total of $16,688 — during their June 28 meeting. County of Barrhead council had made a similar motion on May 16.
The county and division had decided in May to share costs on the project, although the county did intend to explore possible grants to help fund the initiative.
Pembina Hills board chair Jennifer Tuininga noted there are two doors at the front entrance of the regional building and “neither one of them … has a button to open the doors or anything.”
She said there will be upgrades to the doors to enable them to swing open, but also the entire front entrance of the building, including the washrooms.
It is not known when the renovations will proceed. County manager Debbie Oyarzun said the division is the lead on the project; however, the Pembina Hills office is currently shut down for the month of July and will re-open in August.
Trustees adopted the 2017-2018 bus rental and shop rates, which have been altered to lower costs for the division’s outlying schools when they require a bus outside of normal school hours.
Supt. David Garbutt indicated that when a school needs a bus outside of regular school hours, they are charged for the distance travelled back to the bus shop without any students on board.
Because in-town schools are near the bus shop, their expenses are insignificant but the “dead head” run for rural schools was quite high, he said.
Garbutt said a lot of number crunching was done and it was decided to raise the internal bus rental rate by six cents to $1.19 per kilometer, plus a fee for the driver.
Although the rate is going up, it will be more equitable because “we will no longer charge that dead head portion of the run to those outlying schools,” said Garbutt.
Board chair Jennifer Tuininga said she was glad this issue was looked at because trustees often hear about the cost of bussing and field trips from schools.
“It’s nice to see that it’s a little more equal across the schools,” she said.
Trustee Jan Hoffart added her agreement, noting that you don’t really realize that the rural schools have to pay more for field trips.
In addition, the external bus rate for non-division groups who want to rent buses is being increased from $2.05 to $2.21 per kilometer, plus the cost of the driver.
An hourly rate of $69 for drivers on external trips has been eliminated, as Pembina Hills hasn’t charged that rate in years, said Garbutt.
The charge for serving vehicles remains $65 per hour for external uses and $45 per hour for internal uses.
Due to the new requirements under Bill 1, Pembina Hills trustees voted to adopt an amended rates annex that no longer contains any fees for instructional materials, such as textbooks or workbooks.
The newly-amended annex still lists maximum fees for rentals of band instruments, as well as fees for adult and foreign students.
Tuininga said there is still clarification needed around some of the fees that their various schools charge.
“We’re still gathering information on specific fees at the schools,” she added.
Bill 1, An Act to Reduce School Fees, eliminated fees for instructional materials and transportation to a designated school more than 2.4 kilometres away from a student’s residence. It received royal assent in May.
To compensate for the lost revenue from school fees, Pembina Hills has received a grant of $406,000 from the province.
